Torpedoes and Tides - Things Did Not Go Well!

 Colin came over to try another go at Torpedoes and Tides from Ganesha Games. Real World had got in the way, so it had been a couple of months since our initial games.

We decided to replay the convoy game we'd played before, swapping sides so that Colin was the attacking RN, whilst I played the Germans. We rolled for a moonless night, which drastically reduced the range of LOS. Colin decided to take advantage of the darkness and deployed as close to my convoy as the rules allowed. This would make things very "interesting".

Turn One

Rather uneventful, the British moved rushed one blind forward then the next blind rolled a double fail for activation, passing the turn to the Germans. The rest of the British blinds just made their compulsory move straight ahead. The German convoy took advantage of this and all the vessels remained on blinds and successfully took two moves towards their exit side.

Turn Two

The over enthusiastic first British blind revealed itself to be a MTB and moved forward, getting close enough to reveal both of the leading two German blinds as a pair of Kriegfischkutters. Moving this close allowed both German vessels to have a snapshot at the MTB, which suffered a suppression. Colin then revealed his furthest blind to be another MTB which failed it's activation, so the British just chugged forward.

The Germans kept moving towards their exit point and safety, both KFK peppering the MTB as the went by, inflicting more damage. The Verpostenboot also came off blind and fired on the other MTB, but missed.

Turn Three
The Brits revealed a MGB, which cut between the German escorts, firing and damaging one of the KFK as it went past. The closest MTB now had problems, it was too close to launch torpedoes....

...and also too close to manoeuvre in time, colliding with the KFK. Damaging both vessels, which, with the effects of previous gunfire was enough to wreck the MTB, which promptly caught fire.

The following British Blind (the other MGB) had been relying on the MTB to get out of the way, so now also crashed into the sinking boat! The last MTB swung around behind the Germans to try and line up with a shot on the rear freighter, but didn't have enough time (only rolled 2 activations, it takes 2 activations to launch torpedoes and one activation had already been needed to get into position).

Now it was the German's turn to run out of manoeuvre room, as the KFK crashed into the Brit MTB and the Vortostenboot ran into the back of the KFK!! But during all the confusion the first German freighter moved off the table to safety.

Turn Four

Again the surviving MTB only rolled 2 activations and had to move to line up on it's target. As it couldn't launch torpedoes, it shot up the Vorpostenboot, scoring a wheelhouse hit!

Both British MGBs now found themselves without anywhere to go, so collided with the freighter and Vorpostenboot respectively. Everyone suffered damage, except for the freighter (well probably a couple of scratches on the paintwork!). The MGBs poured fire into the unfortunate KFK, which burst into flames.

In the German phase the escorts inflicted a bit of damage on the attacking British boats, but more importan6tly, the freighter escaped off the table edge.

 An outright win to the Germans, 7VP to the British 1! It felt more like an episode of the Keystone Kops than a naval fight, with more Damage points inflicted by collisions than shooting!

The main lesson from the game, KEEP YOUR DISTANCE!!